Forget Woodpeckers - Put People First For A Change

My Word

May 17, 1992|By Richard Pluth

Comments regarding so-called animal rights in two recent articles that appeared in the Sentinel made my blood run cold.

The first story was the Style profile of Kathleen Marquardt, who founded an organization called People First to combat the growing influence of animal-rights activists. The second article appeared in the Business section. It told about Liberty County residents who say their livelihoods are threatened by moves to protect the red-cockaded woodpecker in the Apalachicola National Forest.

You see, I side with Marquardt and the folks in Liberty County.

I was incensed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals national director Ingrid Newkirk, who compared the deaths of 6 billion chickens in slaughterhouses - gasp! - to the killing of 6 million Jews in concentration camps by the Nazis. Absolutely ludicrous was PETA chairman Alex Pacheco's statement, ''We feel that animals have the same rights as a retarded human child.''

Following on the heels of this nonsense in the Marquardt profile was Ralph Costa of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who said of the steps taken to protect the red-cockaded woodpecker, ''If it creates human suffering down the road, that's the way it's going to be. Our values change, and we need to change.''

What convoluted thinking! Today's changing values have their roots in the humanistic thinking of the 1960s and 1970s, and are coming home to haunt us, as evident in the fanatatical philosophy espoused by Costa.

The value such animal-rights activists place on human life is evident in the hate mail Marquardt receives. I'm talking about a note that said, ''I hope you and your whole family die in the most tragic and painful and slow death.''

A prime example of this warped philosophy can be seen in India, where teeming masses live and die from starvation and disease, while animals are allowed to roam freely, spreading disease and eating food meant for human consumption. One cannot kill the animals, even for food, because they may be someone's long-dead relative reincarnated.

I find it hypocritical of these people to moan and cry that we have to save the woodpecker and other endangered species no matter what the cost. When quizzed, they will enthusiastically declare themselves to be evolutionists.

The paradox in their thinking is that natural selection (survival of the fittest) is the basis for evolution. If they support natural selection, they have to accept the natural fact that certain species will disappear to make way for stronger species - for example, man.

In today's economy, with jobs being lost left and right, and with people's entire futures and the future well-being of their families at stake, the possible disappearance of a species of woodpecker should take a very low place on everybody's priority list.

It is time that the rational-thinking people of this country realize that the people who put animals first have a far-reaching agenda. If that agenda is carried out, it will adversely affect all of our lives.